


remember me as a time of day

by orphan_account



Category: DCU, Legion of Superheroes
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-17
Updated: 2011-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-24 17:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>she comes home one night to find him sitting in her living room, lab coat gone and hair mussed beyond belief. that’s when she knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	remember me as a time of day

**Author's Note:**

> this takes place in that strange, nebulous post-crisis on infinite earths, pre-dc reboot continuity where no one is really sure what losh canon is still canon from pre-crisis days. :|a

She comes home one night to find him sitting in her living room, lab coat gone and hair mussed beyond belief. That’s when she knows. For a long moment, there is silence save for the clink of her keys against the counter and their breathing as she floats over to sit in front of him. His eyes are closed as he leans forward to rest his forehead against hers. Her hands reach out to cup his face, run through his hair, and his breath stutters.

“How long?” she asks him, speaking as quietly as she can for fear of all of this breaking right in front of her.

Green eyes slowly open and he leans back just enough to look at all of her face. He stares at her as if he’s seeing a ghost. His fingertips brush against her cheekbones so lightly she wonders if there is even a touch at all or if her mind is playing tricks on her. “Kara,” he whispers and his voice cracks. She rubs her thumbs against his cheeks and watches as his eyes shine in a way she’s never seen before. “The day after tomorrow,” he finally answers.

She inhales shakily. Exhales. Inhales again, more steadily this time, then nods. “Alright,” she says, “Let’s… Let’s enjoy the next two days as best we can.” Her fingertips rest against his lips, shushing him before he can speak, ask her how they can enjoy themselves when they know what’s coming. “Trust me,” she whipers, leans in to kiss him, shudders as his hands move to her back and she pushes away all thoughts of the coming doom.

The kiss is soft, gentle and hesitant in all the ways it’s never really been between them. Then he crushes his lips against hers and clings to her like a drowning man. She inhales sharply, slides her hand into his hair and murmurs, “Querl,” against his mouth. Somehow, they move from the couch to the bed, too tangled up in each other to really think of the logistics of how it happens. It just does.

That’s a pattern with them. Things just happen. Their first kiss was deliberate on Kara’s part, but their second came in between yelling, as they were hurling insults and obscenities at each other. It was angry and violent and the lab blew up when Kara backed into one of the stations Querl had been working at. The first time they ever made love was after a mission gone terribly wrong while both of them were injured. They barely made it to Querl’s quarters from sickbay before they were tearing clothes off, clutching each other and reassuring themselves that the other was still alive, still breathing, still moving.

This is different. He lays her down gently onto the bed and stares at her, gently traces her face, her throat, her collarbone. She swallows, the air catches in her throat and she gives him a shaky smile. “I love you,” she says. He smiles at her in return, a lopsided, broken smile, and kisses her softly again. Everything is slow, deliberate in ways it’s never been before. They’re both savoring the moment, committing it to memory and hoping that it never ends.

Afterwards, they lay next to each other in silence. He traces vectors and equations onto the skin of her back and side with his fingers and she smiles at him, head pillowed on her arms. His hand moves to where her neck meets her shoulders and traces over the swooping lines of her tattoo before he leans over and kisses it. A quiet chuckle escapes her and she can feel his lips twitch in something resembling a smile against her skin.

“Promise me something,” she says, rolls over, and looks at him seriously. She brushes blond off his forehead, behind his ear. He needs a haircut, but she can’t really imagine him without his hair being at least a little shaggy. “Promise me you’ll be happy. There’s so much left for you to do. So many things you’ve still got ahead of you. I don’t want you to go through all of that always carrying grief with you.”

He’s silent. He frowns and his brows draw together, making the skin on his forehead crinkle in that way that means he’s displeased. She runs over it with her thumb, smooths it out. “I don’t…” know if he can do that, he can’t say. She hears it nonetheless and looks at him, fondness and sadness welling up inside her.

“Try. For me.” It’s a low blow, but she can’t bring herself to care. It does its job and he nods.

They eat dinner wrapped up in sheets on the kitchen floor. She wanted to eat in bed, he said it wasn’t sanitary. She laughed. The day-old Chinese is cold and greasy but the company makes it better than day-old Chinese has any right to be. She leans against his shoulder and tells him, finally, of New Krypton. Of the him from the future she met first and what he said to her. “I thought you were a dick,” she admits with a wry smile. “Still do, sometimes.”

“Good,” he returns as he steals a piece of her chicken.

The next day is spent in bed, talking, kissing, holding each other. They curl up against one another, shutting out the rest of the world for as long as they possibly can. Night falls and she trembles in his arms. She folds herself up and can’t stop the tears that fall or the small, gasping breaths, or the shudders that wrack through her. He holds her through it all and if there’s any wetness that falls on her head, Kara doesn’t mention it. “I’m scared,” she confesses instead.

His grip on her tightens and he pulls her against his chest even more. “I know,” he replies. He rocks her slowly, murmurs to her in a mixture of Kryptonian, Coluan and Interlac until she calms. They stay like that for the rest of the night, silent, dozing occasionally, holding each other as if that will make the next day never come.

When dawn breaks, she looks up at him, kisses him once and murmurs a vow in his native tongue against his lips. He stares at her, wide-eyed for a long moment before he whispers the return in her own language, voice rough. They kiss a second time, a third, a fourth. Her JLA comm buzzes and both their hearts skip a beat. They dress quickly and quietly. His lips press against hers once more and he only has time to say, “I won’t let you be alone at the end,” before she soars out the window, cape fluttering behind her.

Hours later, in a crater in the middle of the desert, he kneels next to her and takes her bloodied hand in his. Her cracked lips turn upwards in a smile even as tears run down her temples into her hair. Her mouth is stained red, but her eyes shine clear and blue as ever as she squeezes his hand. A wet breath in, a shaky breath out, and her head lolls to the side as her eyes slip closed. She is twenty-two.

His entire body shakes as he lets go of her hand, leans over at ignores the metallic tang as he kisses her for the last time. “Goodbye, Kara,” he says, ignores the way his nose burns and his vision blurs as he stands and goes back to his time machine, back to his team, back to his home. He keeps his promise to her as best he can. There are a few weeks after her passing where he takes himself off the active duty roster and buries himself in his work. Imra visits him, embraces him and tells him she shares his pain. It’s the only platitude he will accept because part of it is true. Telepaths don’t lie about things like that.

Years pass and he finds his footing again. Planets continue to turn, stars continue to burn and life goes on without her. He’s never entirely content, there’s always a dull ache right behind his ribs, but it’s manageable. Until one day the alarms ring and the entire world starts to dissolve as history unravels. There’s only one thing to do and he does it without thinking of what it means. He goes back to the twenty-first century to help Clark and he sees her. His heart stops.

She’s barely eighteen, hair to her shoulders, still dressed in the crop top and skort. There’s no recognition on her face as she looks at him with all the insecurity he remembers from when she was young and only half of the grief and pain that came from losing her planet twice over. She follows him into the depths of his ancestor’s ship and gets angry at him. He wants to smile, there is the spitfire he’s missed all these years, but he doesn’t. He can’t.

He wants to warn her, tell her of what comes, tell her he loves her and cherishes her and misses her every day of his life. He doesn’t. Instead, he saves her cousin, takes his unfortunate relation and leaves. It’s not until he’s back home and holed away in his quarters in the dark that he lets himself relax. The tension in his muscles eases and he tips his head back to rest against the wall as his eyes close. Quiet laughter bubbles up from within him, even as his heart feels as if someone had ripped it from his chest. “Oh, Kara,” he murmurs to himself as he pictures her as he just saw her, so young and bright and beautiful. “What a life you have ahead of you.”

He’s not typically one for maudlin remembrances, but tonight he indulges his emotional side. Holos and pictures are sorted through with melancholy feelings as he remembers the life she’s about to live.


End file.
